The bombing came on opening day of the Africa Games, one of the continent's biggest sporting events, with competitions staged here in Algiers and the towns of Blida, south of the capital, and Boumerdes, to the east. Thousands of athletes, from 52 countries, will compete in 27 sports.

The site of the bombing was midway between Blida and Boumerdes.

The truck drove into the post on the edge of Lakhdaria, a town 50 miles southeast of Algiers in the restive region of Kabylie, as doors opened in the morning for arriving personnel, the security official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The official said that eight soldiers died in the initial blast and that two more died on their way to a hospital.

Al Jazeera played a recorded message from someone it identified as a spokesman for the terrorist group, though it did not give his name or say how it obtained the recording.

''Our martyr, with God's help and might, managed to infiltrate the heart of the military camp,'' the voice said, ''and exploded in the middle of the courtyard.'' The recording's authenticity could not be independently verified.

A second recording the network broadcast identified the suicide bomber as ''brother martyr Sohaib Abou Malih, who drove a truck carrying more than one ton of explosives.''

Interior Minister Noureddine Yazid Zerhouni, speaking at Parliament, played down the bombing. ''We regret the attack this morning and the losses, but it is not a possibility that was excluded from the actions of terrorist groups,'' he said.

The blast was the deadliest in Algeria since suicide bombings in April that killed 30 people and wounded more than 200. The same group, formerly the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, claimed responsibility for that attack.